[N.B. First Published in Barkada Magazine (a Catholic Mass Media Awardee for High School Literature) November Issue]

His heart beats faster, pulse racing and palms sweating, he clicks the mouse with a fierce intensity and navigates through the map with his left hand. He glances at the screen and sees the enemy hordes approaching. Quickly, he sends a message to the rest of the team on their attack strategy. He monitors his gold resources and the strength of his electronic Hero. In a few seconds, a triple kill combo decimates the rest of the enemy team. He looks up and whoops out a congratulatory yell as his team’s winning statistics flash on the screen.

Sounds familiar? 

For the typical massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) fanatic, it sounds like another electronic victory out of several rounds of creating a virtual world of computer network battles. Is such a campaign really worth all the time and effort? Does winning a computer game an indicator of real life...